A longtime Cleveland TV meteorologist had to be rescued after rising water swamped his car on a highway exit ramp this week.

Eighty-three-year-old Dick Goddard, a local weatherman for more than 50 years, says he thought he was going to "buy the farm" when water flooded his car on an Interstate 71 exit south of Cleveland during heavy rain Monday night.

Goddard - who talking on the air about the rain before leaving work at WJW-TV - was trapped for about 45 minutes before firefighters in a rubber boat reached his car, broke the window and pulled him out. He was treated for hypothermia.

Goddard tells The Medina Gazette the water was up to his chin. He credits firefighters with saving his life.